1. The second weekend numbers for the Atlas Shrugged Movie have been disappointing. The movie played in 465 theaters, up from 299 theaters the first weekend. In spite of the number of theaters going up by 50%, the receipts fell 48% to $880,000. Per theater receipts fell from $5,600 to $1,900. A falling of revenue in the second week is common, but the fall appears to be sharper than expected. I do not know what it means to the plans of opening the movie in additional theaters this coming weekend. We should be seeing the announcement regarding that soon on the official theater listing page.

3 Responses to Atlas Shrugged Movie Report: April 25, 2011

Oh hey, this is like identifying laeves from my botany class. Funny, I took zoology and she never told us about this. That I remember, I might have been in some kind of hormonal haze at the time though.This is neat, I’m going to show it to my son. We have lots of birds around here, including owls and at least one hawk which I think is really unusual in a big city.

The Contradiction or stumbling block of Rand’s philosophy, the philosophy of Objectivism is found in her metaphysics. Rand proves an objective reality that includes volition, which is not so easily proven.

After spending weeks on an objective validation of the existence of volition, and finally satisfied that this was possible, the need remained to examine the nature of volition, and particularly as it is distinguishable from or in the context of objective reality. To this day, and to my knowledge, the adherents of Objectivism have never explored or discussed this in sufficient depth.

Using a computer software metaphor, it’s as though the main menu included metaphysics, and the metaphysics menu included objective reality and volition, but when volition was punched in, nothing came up on the menu.

What I want to point out here is that, not only does morality hang on the existence of volition, but theology as well. For my part, I could not escape the parallels between the classical attributes of God, and the attributes of volition, even by Objectivist standards.

Ignoring for the moment the difficulties of quantum physics, objective reality is like balls on a billiard table – they have no choice, no volition. Non-contradictory volition, on the other hand, has the power of an irresistible force as well as an immovable object. It is just here that the line between the dust and the divine becomes blurred.

Clarity begins to be possible when we begin to understand this that was written before Rand came along, namely that man was made in the image of God.

Once we get this matter of Rand’s contradiction resolved it becomes possible to see, appreciate, and embrace what Rand brings to the table where our need to understand human liberty is concerned. It is in understanding her contradiction that we discover why so many of her followers, including Rand herself made a train wreck out of human relationships, especially the relationship of marriage.

The book, Atlas Shrugged, is for me the greatest book ever written. That it is still a best seller decades after it was written is a testament to its dynamism. The movie doesn’t come up to that. It is wonderful to hear people on the big screen speak of their pride in their work and their ability but the movie does not stir deeply and cannot transform lives the way the book does. Someday! Someone will make a blockbuster.